Carbon frame life

Maybe they will….remember
Maybe they will….remember this?

http://taxi.ba.com/

+1 on comments recommending
+1 on comments recommending the kinesis gran fondo ti, it’s what I ride and very pleased with the choice I made.

choosing a bike based on longevity of the material (or let’s be honest, the warranty period offered) is a sound strategy. RE the example above,. I’m not convinced there’s been that many technological innovations over the past 12 years which will actually make a difference. Threaded BSA BB’s are still in common use, as are calliper brakes, discs being a very new development for road bikes, 1 1/8 in headsets also common, and so for all of these standards there are lots of after market options even after 12 years..

Obviously no one would deliberately choose a weak frame because they intend to change bikes every 2 years, but I imagine titanium owners change bikes less frequently than those who own Al and carbon..

Just a gut feeling, no evidence!..

fenix wrote:Steel rusts.

fenix wrote:

Steel rusts. Titanium cracks.
My custome 653 frame rusted – it was repairable though.
Friends have had Titanium bikes crack.

Carbon can break if its impacted in a crash or something – but I’d think that would be my choice for longevity. Don’t go superlight on it and you should be fine.

I think unless you cycle by yourself in a velodrome you will crash at some point regardless of how good you are. Personally I’d rather have the extra protection of a frame being able to survive a crash as well as lasting a while.

All I can add: the ratio of
All I can add: the ratio of “cracked Ti frames” posts to “cracked carbon frames” on cyclechat and yacf is suprising…

A single tube of Ti is lovely stuff, but bicycles are not single tubes, and the prettiness of a weld does not correlate well with its quality. For almost any structure I can think of, joins and welds are usually the failure points.

Furthermore, for all the mystique of artisan welders, etc etc, a small company does not IMO have the same incentive, or ability, to do quality control as a big company, with a twitter account, sending frames to major bike races, does. You do NOT want a frame failing at 40mph in front of millions of viewers, nor do you want pissed off ex-owners when you’re that public, and you can afford to pay a lot of people good money to make sure that doesn’t happen. And given carbon’s density, adding a big margin for error might only mean adding 100 or 200g. That margin directly translates into a long fatigue life.

So I’ll have a punt on the average carbon frame outlasting the average Ti frame. In either case, age-related failure usually will mean obsolete connectors – new headtube standards, new bb standards etc. So try and buy for trusted standards supported by many companies as possible, instead of new and propietary.

I have a similar overall
I have a similar overall build but with a Kinesis Granfondo Ti frame (Athena and Zonda) and use Cruds in it during the winter. Love it and so apparently do road cc 🙂

William

The way I have usually seen
The way I have usually seen carbon bikes often fail (absent crashing or chain suck) is in their interfaces with metal fittings, such as frame lugs, aluminum inserts used in the head tube and bottom bracket, and dropouts. Sometimes water will intrude, and aluminum bits corrode.

Bear in mind that some metal
Bear in mind that some metal frames these days are incredibly thin, 0.4mm on some, which is basically bacofoil plus a bit. If they get dented they are likely to suffer stress fractures after a while, and if they break it’s not practical to weld up material so thin, so perhaps won’t last forever.

Steel frames on the other hand can be heated up and the braze melted to take out a damaged member and slip in another. Carbon can be repaired by several small firms in the UK.